MADRID, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates) won a nerve-wracking fifth stage of the Vuelta a Espana on Wednesday as he was able to just cling onto a narrow lead over a thrilling last 10 kilometers.
Soler had led by 12 seconds at the top of the final climb of the day and was able to just hold off a group of eight pursuers on a nail-biting descent to take the first win by a Spanish rider in a Grand Tour (Giro de Italia, Tour de France and La Vuelta) since October 2020.
Rudy Molard (Groupama-FDJ) finished fourth on the stage and is the new overall race leader, two seconds ahead of Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious), while overnight leader Primoz Roglic slips to 5th place, 4 minutes and 9 seconds behind as he and his Jumbo Visma team allowed the day's breakaway to escape, knowing a change of lead would relieve them of the obligation of controlling the race.
A 12-man breakaway was able to escape from the main peloton and with the Jumbo-Visma and INEOS-Grenadiers teams happy to save their legs and let them escape, the 12 riders opened a gap of almost five minutes.
Jacob Stewart (Groupama-FDJ) rode off the front of the breakaway and took a lead of 40 seconds on the last climb. As he tired, Soler overtook him on a road backed with enthusiastic Basque fans.
Soler crowned the final climb with a 12-second lead over his pursuers to start the breakneck descent into Bilbao, but the gap narrowed continually during the descent until he entered the final sprint with a lead of just around 50 meters.
However, as Soler's pursuers began to look at each other and lost speed, he kept on giving everything and crossed the line three seconds ahead of Daryl Impey (Israel Premier Tech).
Thursday's stage travels from Bilbao to the Ascension de Pico Jano and is the first mountaintop finish of the stage. ■
